For the very first time Nintendo World Report was able to attend the annual event BitSummit, held in Kyoto, Japan. While I’ll admit that the timing lined up nicely with a personal vacation, I was very much looking forward to the event. While Tokyo Games Show is probably the most well known event in the country, BitSummit has more of a boutique indie vibe to it. Showcasing hundreds of different games from Japanese developers, as well as their surrounding countries such as Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. Quite frankly, it would be near impossible to cover all the games at the event given their sheer number. Given that I focused on attending just during the business day (Friday), I only booked a handful of appointments to check out some notable upcoming indie games. Many of these I suspect will make their way to Nintendo’s platforms eventually. but for now please bear in mind that these games are all most likely to come to PC first.

Kidbash: Super Legend - Developed by Authentic Remixes and Fat Raccoon (Release 2027) Kicking off the event was my first appointment for Kidbash: Super Legend. I can be blunt about this. What mainly drew me in was the fantastic looking artstyle of the game. At first I thought it was a form of claymation, but one of the developers told me that the game uses pre-rendered graphics, akin to something like Donkey Kong Country. It gives the game a pretty original approach, but the surprises didn’t stop there. Kidbash is a roguelike platformer. At the end of every stage you get to choose between several upgrades for your weapons, health or special attack bar. I find that the roguelike structure tends to put me off, but I had a good time jumping around and making my way through the stages. The best gameplay comparison would be something along the lines of Mega Man Zero. The most intriguing part is that along the way, as you collect upgrades for your weapons, you are able to combine them into stronger weapons. For example, the gun could be upgraded with a spread attack, while also finding a fire-upgrade to enhance its power. The developer told me they were inspired by Kirby and the Crystal Shards for N64 and it is a neat way to distinguish Kidbash from other 2D action games with a unique visual style. That style did have a lot of charm to it as well. Much more colorful and eye-catching than the wave of pixel-art platformers we’ve seen over the last decade or so. Granted, I do think that the game needs a bit more time in the oven. Especially to get a feel of stages that aren’t jumping from platform to platform and introduce a bit more variety. But the first impressions of Kidbash did not disappoint.

Vikings on Trampolines - Developed by D-Pad Studio (Release TBA) During BitSummit I was assisted by Leon Bierling as my camera and mental support. While I had almost walked past Vikings on Trampolines. It caught his eye as one of the few games that had a multiplayer setup we could play straight away. His intuition was spot on, because this game shines as a short and competitive multiplayer game. Developed by D-Pad Studio, known for their gorgeous pixel-art platformer Owlboy, this game sees you playing as Vikings. On Trampolines. Yeah, the title is pretty much all you need to know, but it doesn’t convey the fun and depth of the gameplay. The game only uses the control-stick for gameplay. Your viking gets dropped from the top of the stage onto a level that contains only a few trampolines. The goal is simply, do not get knocked off or fall off the stage. You can gain a little height by flicking the stick up when hitting the trampoline, or ground pound by moving the stick down while airborne. The real challenge comes into hitting the other player from the sides. Whether you try to give them a push from below or drop on them from above, our matches quickly turned into loud shouting and laughing. The game already feels like this quintessential multiplayer party game. Something along the lines of Killer Queen Black or Towerfall. It is so simple to pick up and play and the variety of the stages really impressed me. Whether it was just the four trampolines on a grassy field, or a windmill with bouncing pads at the far ends of the wings. We were even more surprised that our final bout saw us battling against a boss, which was pretty intense. Especially because our versus match was still ongoing. All in all, I was dismissive when I heard that D-Pad Studio’s next game was multiplayer focused, but it seems they’ve been cooking. Of course the pixel art is once again stunning. With beautiful animation in both the background and foreground, yet never too distracting from the actual vikings on trampolines. Keep an eye out for this one!

Canvas City - Developed by Disc 2 Games (Release TBA) Tactics games aren’t always my forte. Yet, whenever I find one I get into, I really get into them. Canvas City just might be that next one for me. Instead of fighting monsters with magic and swords here you play as a ragtag group of street artists and skaters to fight an oppressive regime in a city. So if Jet Set Radio meets Mario + Rabbids sounds good to you, you’ll be right at home with this. Given that the main cast are all skaters, the main distinctive feature of Canvas City is its movement. Maps are tight but you have a lot of movement options that you can string together with tricks and actions to give yourself an advantage. You can even regain some actions by tagging signs or spraying over rival tags with your own graffiti. It makes for a stylistically cohesive tactics game that embraces the colorful and rebellious nature of the world and its characters. The struggle with a demo for an in-depth tactics game at a public event is that it is really hard to sink your teeth into it. Especially understanding the nuances of movement and combat is something I simply didn’t register properly under the circumstances. That being said, the movement and UI felt spot-on and I think that for tactics-heads this will be one to look out for. Especially given its distinct visual flair compared to the usual tropes of the tactics genre.

TANUKI: Pon’s Summer - Developed by DenkiWorks, Published by Critical Reflex (Release TBC)

Founded by three developers from Kyoto, DenkiWorks made quite a splash when they revealed their debut title last year before BitSummit with TANUKI: Pon’s Summer. This 3D adventure is a bit of an eclectic mix between a sports game and a cozy game. You play as Pon, a Tanuki who has just gotten a new job as a postal office worker to gather money for the repair of a shrine. Your job is to deliver packages to the citizens of the town and slowly get to know them over time. I cannot overstate how lovely the visual artstyle for the game is. From the cute waggling around of Pon with his little postal office hat to your short interactions with the citizens. The developers clearly put a lot of care and attention into the creation of this world. Inspired by their own fondness for the city of Kyoto. Two of the founders of Denkiworks even told me that the put in a few winks and nods to some of their favorite local establishments. That sense of community is apt as Pon is an outsider himself. Some of the townsfolk are quite skeptical of a stranger working for the postal services. A story that feels apt for our times and in particular the experiences of foreigners working and living in Japan. The gameplay feels solid, though I was actually a bit surprised to see the amount of BMX-ing I had to do while playing. While ramps and rooftops are everywhere, landing on your tires is something you’ll probably have to redo quite a number of times. That’s before we’re even talking about tricks and the many challenges spread across the town. It just all fits together beautifully. Sorting and stacking your packages is done with the same inventory management system you’d find in Resident Evil 4. There’s a number of side activities such as fishing, playing baseball or making skewers. While I didn’t get to play around with that aspect myself, the actual renovation of the shrine is a free-flow builder that allows you to create and decorate the shrine to your own liking. TANUKI: Pon’s Summer truly feels like a labor of love, but especially a ton of fun to play. Even if you are just here for the Tony Hawk-like extreme sports gameplay, the more cozy and slowed down segments feel right at home in this world. I’m incredibly excited to see more when TANUKI: Pon’s Summer launches in the future.

HYPERyuki: Snowboard Syndicate - Developed by Wasabi Games, Published by Acclaim Inc. (Release TBD) While it isn’t a series I am particularly fond of, I know the impact that the SSX games made back in the early 2000’s. Following the peak of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, it seems that every extreme sport had to dip their toe into videogames at that time. HYPERjuki: Snowboard Syndicate is clearly trying to bring its own flavor to the snowboarding game. The demo saw me practicing and racing down the slope of a mountain for the highest scores. Jumping, doing tricks, rotating and air-grabbing while dressed as a giant Kaiju was pretty attractive. The main mechanic that sets the game apart is a special boost meter that charges up based on how many tricks you can chain together without crashing. While the boost gives you quite a bit of speed, it is a great tool to get just that little bit more air when sliding down the mountain. My biggest gripe with the game was the performance. Now, I think this had more to do with the fact that my demo was shown on an ROG Ally connected to a monitor, but the game stuttered often and seemed like quite an early build. It’s a shame that the framerate drops took me out of the experience because otherwise it was pretty fun to race down the mountain. I couldn’t really gauge how the game would be more engaging over time. Sure there is multiplayer and high score chasing can be fun to a certain degree. But given the visual style and premise I was suspecting a bit more creativity or a dash of innovation beyond the boost mechanic. Fans of SSX will want to keep an eye on this, although I find it hard to determine how long lasting this experience may be for some.

Jupiter Junkworks - Developed by Pixel Drake (Release TBD) Jupiter Junkworks turned out to be one of the major surprises of the show for me. The developers, Pixel Drake, a small team from Australia wanted to try a new approach to the formula of Tetris. What they’ve eventually settled on is a dropping brick mechanic where by slamming bricks down over single gaps, you force them downwards into holes. In short I’d almost describe it as anti-Tetris. Not because the game feels bad to control, in fact it was a joy to play, but because it is rather hard to unlearn three decades of playing Tetris. But Jupiter Junkworks has style and a vibe. Represented through a group of three characters, working their way through a major steelworks factory they have some fun and fully voice-acted banter among them. In all fairness, I was set aback when the developer told me that they are still looking for a publisher, because the game felt incredibly polished. Sidebar, I have to talk about the custom 3D controller they had made to showcase this demo. While the game uses regular tetris-controls with a few dedicated buttons for slamming and using special moves, the controller fit the atmosphere and aesthetic of the game near perfectly. In the end it was a simple hitbox-like controller, but it felt so satisfying to drop down the pieces into the field and slam them into rows. So any publisher looking to pick this game up is required by me, personally, to make the controller an ultra-deluxe-collector’s-edition-add-on or whatever. Back to the game at hand, you give me a Tetris-like and I’m nearly always bound to have a good time. But I think that the small tweaks and twists from Jupiter Junkworks can set it apart enough from its main inspiration. With plenty of unique shapes and pieces there is enough opportunity to use the slam-mechanic as often as possible. Even creating the common lines to play away blocks isn’t as straightforward when new pieces are thrown into the mix. To charge special moves, you’ll have to connect glowing green bricks. It all makes for a recognizable, but clearly differentiated soup. Throw on some fun personalities from the main characters and I’ll say that Jupiter Junkworks has got me very excited to go back and truly familiarize myself with its gameplay hook.

Castle In The Darkness 2 - Developed by LABS Works (Release TBD)

While retro-inspired action-platformers are a dime a dozen these days, occasionally you stumble upon one that can still surprise you. Castle in the Darkness 2 is developed by LABS Works, founded by two veteran developers who worked on The Binding of Isaac Rebirth. Matt Kap as lead artist and designer and Simon Parzer as main programmer. That’s especially noteworthy because this team developed their own engine to create their ambitious 16-bit action platformer. The demo was fairly extensive and sees you playing as a knight who, after getting ambushed on a train and crashing into a dungeon, has to find his way back. Jumping, exploring and hacking and slashing all feel great. There’s some weight to the platforming, which can be extended with a dodge-roll akin to Super Smash Bros. Honestly, while I think most of us had their fill after the avalanche of Metroidvanias from the last few years, Castle in the Darkness 2 has me honestly very excited. In part that is because of its distinguishing feature: the job system. As you proceed, you’ll collect job crystals that allow all manner of special moves and actions. The knight can do a straight jab for example, but that also gives some additional momentum to your horizontal movement. I immediately found some cool shortcuts by using these mechanics. The developers hinted at there being a lot of different jobs available with each having its own actions and mechanics. I think it helps to set the game apart instead of immediately comparing it to the Castlevania series from which it draws a lot of inspiration. Lastly for a demo I was struck by how good the soundtrack already was. Matt, being a musician for several bands, did all of the music. It shows that his skills as an artist will make for a soundtrack that goes beyond the usual bleeps associated with 16-bit graphics and having a more rock opera feel to it. While Castle in the Darkness 2 has been in development for over seven years it seems that all this time and effort may have been well worth it. I’m incredibly curious to see the final game in full action. If you’re into 2D action platformers this is one you should absolutely keep an eye out for.